Straight on to Heaven
by Brooke1
Summary: Sequel to After the Rain. Buffy and Xander take a little road trip (BX)


Title: Straight on to Heaven

Author: Brooke 

Email: yabbadabbadome13@yahoo.com 

Rating: PG 

Disclaimer: I got this sweet Porn Star sticker and I put it on my laptop. I own that…the sticker not the laptop. Buffy and friends are owned by Joss, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, The UPN and whoever else has rights to the show. Santana and Alex Band and their labels own the title (it's a sweet song if you've never heard it), and the creators of Friends own a line a bogarted.

Summary: Fluff. That's about it.

Distribution: I don't know why anybody would want this, but if somebody does…sure. 

Feedback: Definitely!! Tell me if it sucked or if you liked it. Whatever. Just write back!

A/N: Beginning of Season 7, so just assumed that everything up to that has happened.

This is archived at my group: theunattainable ()

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Xander picked at his food and Buffy studied the motion of his fork. He kept trying to offer her reassuring grins, but he doubted if he was able to keep his rising agitation out of the expression – he got edgy when he was hungry.

"You can eat without me you know?" Buffy asked with a raised eyebrow when, not even halfway through her statement Xander released a sigh of relief and shoveled a forkful of eggs into his mouth. "Just don't forget to chew."

He would have mimicked her except he was gulping down his orange juice while holding a piece of toast up as a chaser. "You need to be less picky," he pointed out while trying to keep his full mouth mostly closed for Buffy's benefit.

She immediately pouted, "My eggs were all liquidy. That's gross."

"Your eggs looked just like mine." Xander shoved a whole piece of bacon in his mouth and Buffy sort of grimaced. 

"It's a texture thing," Buffy insisted with a tiny hint of a whine in her voice. She looked around the small diner that they were in and shifted her silverware around on the paper place mat. "It's like yogurt and pudding…they're all…gunky."

Xander eyed her and took another sip. Buffy didn't see him roll his eyes at her as she had distracted her self with examining the water spots on her spoon. "Do you think this is clean?" she asked abstractedly and held the utensil up for Xander to see.

"I think you have a mental disorder that I need to take into consideration before I enter into this 'relationship'," he air-quoted with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. He was smiling, but it was fleeting when, without warning, Buffy gave him a swift kick to the shin under the table. 

Xander's grunt of discomfort went without sympathy when the Slayer sat back in the booth and folded her arms across her stomach. "For one, being picky about food is not a mental disorder…"

"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is." Xander knew he shouldn't have said that, but as soon as he thought it his mouth just too good a comeback to not voice. He got another swift kick for, what he considered to be, razor sharp wit, and Buffy considered to be what made him an impossible jerk.

"And two," the Slayer glared at him, "you don't air-quote relationship. You just say it."

"We haven't really discussed it," Xander pointed out with a grin while spreading jam on his toast. "Usually there's a mutual consensus…"

"A mutual consensus?" Buffy leant forward onto the table and looked directly into Xander's eyes. She thought it was adorably cute when he dark eyes widened with an almost frightened confusion and started darting around the diner. Buffy fixed him with a predatory smirk, "How's this for the consensus. You're my boyfriend." Xander gulped and nodded. "Good." She sat back satisfied.

"You know," Xander breathed out. "It's not really legal to influence the public like that…threats of violence and all."

"I didn't threaten anybody…" Buffy pointed out and noticed their waiter carrying her new plate to the table. "You made your own decision."

"You wanted me to say no to a Slayer who's giving me the death eyes? Am I suicidal now?"

Buffy smiled at him sweetly and Xander mock-sneered as the waiter set her food down in front of her. "Is this alright, sweetheart?" the middle aged woman asked with a noticeable dose of sarcasm.

Buffy's brow furrowed and she poked at the eggs with the fork in her hand. "Yeah," she sighed after a moment of the waitress scrutinizing her. "I guess."

The woman smiled cattily and then rolled her eyes at Xander while Buffy continued her examination. "Third times a charm," she muttered while walking away from the table.

Xander tried to keep his smile in and Buffy's head shot up at the comment. "The service here really leaves something to be desired," she commented loudly enough for the retreating woman to hear.

Xander shrugged, "You picked it."

"You said that if we didn't stop soon you were going to eat my leg."

Xander nodded in remembrance, but didn't retract his previous statement. He watched Buffy jam her fork into the eggs, "Well, at least it's still grey out, right? I'd hate it if we just drove forty minutes out of town just to have breakfast."

Buffy didn't look up and took a tiny bite before frowning again. "These are gritty now."

"That's the third batch huh?" Xander asked and ate some more of his breakfast while Buffy nodded at him. "The grit is probably the huge loogie." He had never seen the Slayer act so fast as she did when she slammed the fork down on the plate and turned red with either anger or disgust – probably both. "Restaurants don't like it when you send food back…repeatedly." He smiled a little, "I'd have given you sneeze eggs, too."

Buffy pouted even more dramatically and Xander's attempt at humor faded away. "I'm sorry, Buff…" She didn't even look at him. "Look," Xander reached for an empty saucer and put some of his food on it before sliding the rest of his plate to Buffy with a hopeful grin. "You can have the rest."

She looked up at him through her eyelashes and studied his food before picking up her fork again. "How do you know that you didn't get spit eggs?"

"They like me," Xander stated unequivocally. "People usually do," he winked at her with a leer.

Buffy rolled her eyes, but smiled back. "Here," she picked up the bacon that he had given her and put it on his saucer. 

"You gotta problem with bacon too?" Xander asked with more disbelief than Buffy thought necessary. His expression seemed to look as if she had just insulted his grandmother or something. "Now that, dearest Buff, is a mental disorder," he ate some of the bacon. "No wonder you weigh 80 pounds."

Buffy slit her eyes at him and spoke through a mouthful. "I do not weigh 80 pounds AND even if I did, that's something you never talk about."

"Why not?" Xander challenged defiantly.

"Cuz I told you so."

"So I'm just supposed to do whatever you tell me. Follow your rules. I'm sorry, but I'm my own ma…"

"You agreed to it when you said that you were my boyfriend," Buffy shrugged.

"I never said that I was your boyfriend." Xander denied whole heartedly, but his frown turned into a glare when he saw Buffy smiling brightly at him. "That was trickery." She just stuck her tongue out at him and resumed her meal. Xander didn't try to hold in the warm smile that broke out while he watched her. "Just hurry up and eat Twiggy. We got places to go."

Xander choked on his food when he was kicked under the table again and looked up to find Buffy not even paying attention to him. "You should have that twitch looked at."

"It wasn't a twitch," she said nonchalantly. "I kicked you again."

"Honesty is usually such a flattering quality…"

Buffy just smiled sweetly at him again and finished off his plate. "Just pay the bill boyfriend." She had said it with a definite tease in her voice, but something inside clenched and froze at the implications of having Xander as a boyfriend. She had spent what little sleep she got the previous night imagining what it would be like to have her best male friend ever like that…with her. She had done the imagining and planning thing before with Angel and Parker and Riley, even Spike. Just running the ideas through her mind and playing out how she would act and what she would feel, but now, somehow, it seemed permanent. 

When she had kissed Xander the night before it had been completely spur of the moment. Sure, she was human and female and on more than one occasion she had envisioned it, but when she acted it out, she had sealed her fate. Xander wasn't just somebody that she could make out with. Not after everything, not after all they had gone through together. To kiss Xander after all that time, so many years…that meant a serious long lasting forever type of admission. Boyfriend, no matter how long they dated would mean something more lasting that Buffy had ever been offered.

"Oh," Xander grinned back, "You're one of *those*."

"One of whats?" Buffy raised one eyebrow, almost in a dare to say the wrong thing to her. But Xander wasn't the average man, he never had the average response.

"One of those girlfriends who makes the man pay for everything." He took up the bill and reached for his wallet. The smile that the waitress sent him didn't go unnoticed by Buffy, and neither did the thinly veiled tone of sympathy that was directly under the surface of the careless gesture. "I got cha Buff. Luckily for you, I'm gainfully employed."

"You're jumping the gun assuming that I'm your girlfriend."

Xander's expression faltered just a little bit under Buffy's blasé air. "So I'm your boyfriend but you're what? Single."

Buffy's smirk was teasing and it did a lot to relax him, "Are you asking me?"

With a new found confidence Xander laid the money on the table and pushed himself from the booth. "No." He was on his way out of the door and not looking back to see the annoyed and disbelieving expression that he knew Buffy was wearing. He waved at the diner staff with a warm smile before pushing the door open and heading back into the warming grey of the parking lot. Xander took measured steps and timed how long it would take Buffy to run out after him.

"No?!" Her voice in all its confusion echoed through the barren parking lot about twenty seconds after the door shut behind him.

"Nope," Xander tossed back to her with out turning. He was grinning from ear to ear while he listened to her footsteps as Buffy jogged to his side, and then he forced it down so that he could face her with an indifferent expression. When Buffy reached his side he made a quick decision and tossed his arm low around her waist. He was pleasantly surprised when Buffy, with only the slightest tug, let herself be pulled into him. "I was telling you."

"Telling me?" Buffy didn't pull away from him, but did her best to sound affronted. She craned her neck up to see his face and frowned at his nod. 

"Yep, I was telling you that you're my girlfriend."

"Am I'm just supposed to listen to you?"

Xander pulled open her door and stepped aside for her to get into the car, but Buffy stayed standing in front of him. "Well, as long as I'm paying for things…" He watched Buffy regard him silently for a moment, almost as if she were considering her moves before acting on them. After a brief pause she stepped forward so that she was facing him and then leant into his chest, allowing Xander to wrap his arms around her again.

She purposely dropped her tone to her most vulnerable whisper. "You can't tell me what to do."

"You know, Buff," Xander smiled and tilted his gaze down to meet hers. "You seem to think that you're still all special," she raised her eye brows in shock. "I'll have you know that you're one in a million now."

"Slayers, yeah." Buffy shrugged knowing that Xander would take the bait and she'd come out on top.

"Also girls in the world," Xander rebuffed rhetorically.

"None of whom would date you," Buffy added quickly. Leave it to Xander to steal her joke and use it against her. 

She was smiling up at him and the urge struck him again…well it never really left since that morning when he had woken her up, but it came back in full force when he was so close to her and looking down into the clear green-grey of her eyes. It would be so easy, he chastised himself while keeping a reasonable distance from her. Just lean down…just kiss her, you can, you know. Xander hated that his heart started to pound in his chest and wondered if Buffy could feel it too. He noticed that she was watching him closely now, almost as if she were waiting for his move. 

Xander thought it had been so much easier the night before when she had simply leant up and kissed him first. At least then he knew that it was what she wanted…now…

Acting as impulsively as all the thought that he had just invested in his plan allowed him to, Xander leant down quickly…and it seemed that Buffy had, yet again, grown tired of waiting to follow his lead, because he caught her on the up-tilt.

Buffy grunted at the impact first and pulled away, holding her forehead, while Xander chose to squeeze his eyes shut against the sharp sting caused by the accidental head butt. Xander let out a forced laugh and stepped aside for Buffy to enter the car, hoping to move on from the incident as quickly as possible. "Let's go," he said on his way around to the driver's side.

Buffy nodded and ducked into the car. She let the discomfort of the situation wash over her  and shook her head just before Xander slammed his door behind him. That had never once happened before to her. Smacking her forehead against his was almost like a scene from a bad teen angst movie, not her real life. Not with well over eight years of kissing practice under her belt. She had to be some sort of doofus. 

Xander started the car and then turned to face her with, what he hoped, would be a comforting smile…one that would mask any lingering nervousness, and she met his expression with a forced grin of her own before turning to look out of the windshield again.

"Enter awkward silence," Xander muttered as he pulled out of his parking space. Buffy's head whipped around to face him and he was unsure if he actually gulped at the wide eyed shocked expression on her face, or if he thought that he should and the gesture got muttled somewhere between his brain and his throat. Either way his mouth dried out and he fought to keep his eyes on the road.

"What?" Buffy asked even though she knew perfectly well what he had said. His sarcasm at the expense of her nervousness was less than appreciated. Did he have any clue how hard this was…even now, right from the start it was hard. She had to work up to let herself think of him in a purely natural way after spending the better part of a decade keeping him locked in the 'Best Friends Box'. He was such a stable in that category that he was right next to Willow…even almost a match for Mr. Gordo, she was that comfy with him. He was a confidant…and now she wanted to make out with him hard core in the front seat of his car. Shocking? Yeah, just a bit. And, yet, here he had the nerve to sit making jokes because she couldn't quite work out if she should pull him out of that box or keep him in there with the exception of explicit touching. "That's never happened to me before," Buffy defended quickly and with a straight face that seemed to be in place to relate the dyer implications of that fact. "I can usually…" she gestured vaguely with her hands and Xander glanced at her with a slightly confused expression. "I'm a good…ya'know…I *can*…"

He pulled his lower lip into his mouth and nodded. "I know," he agreed. "Got the sneak preview last night, remember."

"Couldn't forget," Buffy's voice was just above a whisper and she felt his gaze on her even though she was focused on her clasped hands in her lap. "You can, too, ya'know," she looked up at him after a moment and held his gaze before he turned back to the road. "You're good…" She trailed off and pulled both of her lips into her mouth in an attempt to stave off a frown. Stuttering over words…that's when she had it bad. She had done it with Angel and Parker and Riley, even Spike had made her mouth race with the speed of her pounding heart and silence the sentence forming portion of her higher mind. And now she was doing it with Xander, and God help her she was talking about kissing…and she couldn't even actually say the word to him when was in the context of *him*. And she was blushing and trying so hard to be normal…and he nodded. His responses really needed some fine tuning if she planned on letting him live so that she could enjoy the benefits of their relationship.

"Which way do you want to go? Northeast or southeast?" Xander asked. Focusing on the direction of getting them to nowhere in particular would keep him from saying or doing anything dumb…er. For all intents and purposes he had spent, like, three years dating Buffy. Dating and kissing and touching and…

Xander gulped and his whole body clenched, his fists gripping the steering wheel hard,  when he stumbled onto that little buried fantasy. He had done it over and over in his mind ever since he was 16 and now here it was. Here she was…the dream, the first thing that he had ever personally witnessed that came so close to perfection… even through the years that dampened it and flawed her and made her not want to shine so bright, sitting next to him now was this glowing vision of beauty that was even more perfect because of the time and the flaws. He thought vaguely that he should tell her that, but instead he just pulled the map from the dashboard and tossed it into her lap.

Buffy looked at the folded piece of paper and glanced back at Xander, who was looking contently at the road – and trying not to look at her- before she took it in her hand and studied the thin black, blue and red lines. Whatever he was thinking about he didn't want to say and this was easier than asking. 

"Hurry up, Buff. Exits coming up."

Buffy squinted her eyes at the map and then turned it a little in her hand. "I really have no idea what this means," she admitted after a while.

Xander smiled for the first time since they left the diner parking lot. "And you call yourself a navigator?"

Buffy pursed her lips at him and went to work folding the map back up, "No. You called me the navigator. I said that I couldn't tell the difference between north, south, east and west."

He shook his head with an air of shame, but spoke teasingly. "You sorry sorry excuse for a Slayer. Direction is one of the most pivotal instincts…"

"Now for you, would that be direction to Madam Francesca's Adult Video Store *or* Carl's Junior?"

"That's it!" Xander exclaimed too melodramatically for her to believe him for a second. "We're broken up!" Buffy was laughing at him and that's what Xander tried to make happen. He shone when he could use humor to defuse a situation, and the fact that he could make Buffy laugh made his talent that much more worth while.  

"Go right!" Buffy ordered through gasping breaths as they came up on a freeway entrance and Xander swerved to not miss her directed turn.

He looked over and saw that she was finally getting her laughter under control and smiled, "Get us killed next time, kay Buff?"

"Where's this go to?" she asked her eyes fixed out of her window on the mountains that lined the roadway.

Xander shrugged even though she wasn't looking at him. "We'll find out." He watched Buffy study the rapidly passing scenery with a slight grin crooking her lips, and let a wave of warmth…attraction and awe that he had successfully repressed since she had rejected him all those years ago wash over him. He was allowed to feel that now…Buffy turned suddenly and face him with a full fledged smile, as if she knew that he was watching her instead of the road, and Xander snapped back to focus and cleared his throat dismissively. 

"Give me the map," Buffy reached for the forgotten parchment that was still resting in his lap, seemingly with out conscious thought. Her hand brushed against his thigh, in a gesture that wasn't even overtly sexual in its intent and she had done hundreds of times in the past, but this time gotten a gasp of surprised shock from the contact. She quickly pulled her hand and the map back and tried to look busy studying the lines that she, just minutes before, admitted to not understanding in the slightest.

Xander shook his head vehemently, "No, no…it's…you didn't…its ok and all…nothing…" He took a deep shuddery breath and let his eyes shut for a calming moment. Maybe humid nights and rain made moving in on you friend easier? Maybe this was so hard because they were friends. Xander had liked to think that because he had loved Buffy…lusted after her from the start that she would never be the type of friend to him that Willow was. On many levels she wasn't. Buffy hadn't always been there for him, didn't know each and every one of his dirty little secrets like the fact that when he was eight he liked throwing tea parties in Willow's back yard and he made her call him Esther because it was her grandmother's name and he loved her grandmother. She didn't know that Captain Hook made him cry the first time he saw him at Disneyland, she hadn't been there and it never came up. Buffy simply didn't have his past and whatever she had gathered from it wasn't because she had outright asked. He supposed he could say the same thing in regards to her. He knew what she told him…and what was potentially apocalyptic, even though he wanted no part in those details. Yet, somehow, someway his crush must have been best friend material or else everything would flow…it would be easy to carry out what he had planned in his mind since the first day of the tenth grade. But it wasn't. Maybe kissing Buffy needed work and planning and, even though it was highly enjoyable the first time when it had been on the spur of the moment, it wasn't easy to keep it that way because the rest of the time they were friends. Really good best friends who just happened to interact with each others' lives on a completely different level than he had even played a friend on. 

He pulled his car over to the shoulder of the road before Buffy could even get her vocal chords to coordinate a response at the sudden jerky swerve. Xander had settled on an action, and as was not a regular occurrence in his life, he was going to act on it. He pulled the map from Buffy's hands, breaking her minimal resistance before the car had even come to a complete stop. She was still pouting with a furrowed brow and a confused look in her wide eyes when he impulsively leant over to her seat…

"Dammit," Xander cursed under his breath when his seatbelt locked and pulled him back just before he could reach her. He worked quickly and undid the clasp, shaking it free of his arm when it got entangled and Buffy giggled. Her laughter dies off, however, when he turned to face her with a more serious expression than she had been expecting from him. Just the look in his eyes…it made her whole body flush and her heart beat pick up, and Xander was moving towards her quickly again while she silently prepared herself. The anticipation of his lips on hers again for the first time since the night before…she lunged forward the tiniest bit to shorten his journey…

Xander winced when they collided nose first between the two seats, and he opened his eyes to find Buffy staring at him sheepishly and holding the bridge of her nose. His eyes shut in disbelief and he felt the slight rocking of Buffy adjusting to face front in her seat again since the moment had blown up and done a nose dive into cement…and then had the wreckage lit on fire again. 

"We're not doing something right," Xander sighed and turned in his seat too. He pulled his seatbelt back into place and merged back into traffic. "At some point," he noticed Buffy reaching for the map that had landed sprawled out on the dashboard, "At some point we've got to be able to do this again…without getting concussions." She hummed agreement beside him. "Not to say that it wouldn't be worth it," he continued in a heavily veiled compliment to which she nodded again.

Buffy's response was even more mumbled because she wasn't even looking up when she spoke. To tell the truth, she was wondering if Xander's face was throbbing as heavily as hers…she would have been more concerned about the sharp pain that ran over the bridge of her nose to her forehead if she hadn't been head butted so much. "Yeah. I do like to keep the head injuries in the field." She rotated the map in her hands again to look at it from a new and equally meaningless angle. "And it's just not worth it if its not a headboard." She made that last comment, what she thought was too quietly for Xander to hear, but she literally heard him turn to face her. Could feel his shock boring into the side of her face, and she blushed despite herself.

He took a claming breath, but counted the fact that he had heard it to mean that it didn't necessarily work. "You trying to tell me something?" he asked to defuse the heady tension that had reclaimed it's shotgun seat in the car. "Should I be taking notes?"

"On what?" Buffy asked distractedly in hopes of downplaying her rising anxiousness. "That was more of a general statement than a lesson plan."

"A general statement about what you like in the…" he gestured with his hands as Buffy had done earlier and she looked at him blankly. "…the bedroom…"he whispered furtively. 

Buffy laughed, but the sound relayed no real humor. It was mostly a hollow exhalation. She didn't want the answer, but had asked the question all the same. A part of her called herself a liar because she was still trying to fool herself into not wanting to know what she so obviously wanted to know…

"And what does it tell you?" she folded the map in her lap and awaited his answer patiently. Her eyes were fixed to the side of his face to make the situation that much more uncomfortable; but she wasn't about to let him off the hook.

Xander kept his eyes ahead knowing that if he were to look at her he would crack and not be able to speak with a straight face. "That's you're a good…" Her eyes narrowed beside him. "…old fashioned…" She was daring him silently to complete the sentence with full knowledge of what he was going to say. "…missionary girl…"

Xander slammed his eyes shut in preparation of being hit with something. A shoe that she had so conveniently kicked off, the map, a fist…something; but nothing came…odd.

"And you connected those dots, how?"

"Well," Xander started unsurely about how he was going to explain his logic. "You'd have to be…ya'know…below…"

"You really don't have to finish that," Buffy cut him off when she noticed his slight blush.

"Oh thank God," Xander exhaled in relief.

"We can't even kiss right," she was looking wistfully out over the mountains to her right. "We should definitely leave the other stuff until after we've worked out ho to not break my nose on the lean…"

"Sorry."

Buffy chuckled and sent him a half smile. "Not your fault." She hesitated briefly but then reached over and dropped her hand on top of the denim cover expanse of Xander's upper thigh. He sucked in a quick breath that she could hear and jumped a little but she didn't remove her hand. Buffy figured that for things to progress they would have to be made to do so…and she wanted the progression. She wanted it more than anything. "I got a little over zealous too," she ran her hand up and down the slightest bit and Xander lowered his gaze to see what she was doing exactly. To verify that this was, in fact, Buffy who was transforming this, once friendly touch into something completely different…something so much better.

With each passing swipe of her hand she became less nervous- more sure that it was alright for her to touch him like this. Buffy wanted to be able to share what she felt for him, to explain why it was more now than it ever was before and why, but the words wouldn't come. He made her feel good. That was the simple conclusion of all her circular thoughts running through her mind. She liked that about him. "We're going to work on it," she assured him. "I want…" It was always so hard to speak and be put out completely in front of anybody, even her best friend…her Xander. "I want us to work on it."

Xander nodded and swallowed, reminding himself to breathe. He felt like a giddy teenager again. Years over and past Buffy and with one touch she Dalorianed him back to 1997. "I want that, too…to work on it…"

"…and build," Buffy squeezed his thigh. "So that one day we can talk about…that…and not be…"

"Like this?" Xander asked and his voice actually cracked. It at least got Buffy to giggle, if not at his own intentional expense.

"Yeah," she nodded. "Because it'll be worth it." Her voce relayed a quiet promise that they might have a shot at working, if for no other reason than the fact that they each wanted it so much.

"Most definitely worth it." Xander turned to face her briefly when he said it and found Buffy leaning in much more closely than he expected. Close enough to just work up the will to close the gap and…

Buffy's eyes were focused over his shoulder across a wide expanse of sand and dirt on the opposite side of the highway. "Pull over," she said excitedly and broke what little confidence Xander had mustered to even try to peck her. "Xander!" she slapped his shoulder with a bright smile in place, "Pull over!"

He did as he was told, cutting across two lanes of traffic the wide shoulder on his side of the road, but before he could ask what was the matter Buffy had scrambled out of the car. Xander, for his part, hadn't even been paying much attention to where he was driving, and Buffy hadn't been giving him directions so he was just going wherever his Taurus took him. They obviously ended up on a smaller stretch of road than the 405 because Buffy was running around the hood of the car, grinning wildly and pointing off into the distance.

"XAN!" 

Her voice was muffled though the car consol Buffy he opened his door and stepped out anyway, his eyes immediately following the path Buffy was pointing in, and he gasped. A satisfied grin breaking his features just as she reached his side and moved so close that he had no choice but to drape an arm over her shoulders.

"We found it," Buffy spoke with a sense of awe and then glanced up to see the profile of Xander's slight grin. She let him lean them back against the side of the car and they both turned and focused on the brilliant yellow glow that was cresting the horizon. It bathed them in warmth even from afar and suddenly the gray that was behind them all melted away. It didn't leave black and white in its shadow, even though now, everything was blaringly clear cut. It all made sense in the light of the day, and it was all amazingly, perfectly colored in an array or yellows and oranges and bright blues and whites that made the background…so much more brilliant than simple black and white.

Xander moved without putting any real thought into what he was doing. His left hand crossed and reached for Buffy's chin, tilting her head up and he just turned to look at her…look straight down into her eyes and she was clinging onto his side. He had seen her weak before, but that's not what she was doing now. Right now Buffy, the mightiest Slayer, was relenting. Submitting defeat to the deadliest but most desired foe and she was trying with everything that she was to not be scared. 

He smiled at first because he knew what that felt like. Knew what it was like to think that what is right in front of you could be…was…is love…

Xander moved slowly and this time Buffy waited in place, her chin tilted up and supported by his fingers by a soft touch. His lips on that first touch dampened and drank in the resulting spark; the sweet lingering press that ended at just that before Buffy turned more into him and pressed her body closer. She wanted him to hold her, needed it, as much as Xander seemed to when he wrapped his arms around her fully and delved in again. Now melting into each other with deep sighs and tasting with the faintest licks; creating a new acquaintance with an old friend with bathing in a golden shade…on the side of a random highway.

Buffy pulled back from him slowly and with a girlish smile in place when a passing car honked its horn several times. A fading chant of 'GET A ROOM' passed, but Xander was still holding her…looking at her with an expression that wasn't quiet a smile, but still relayed an air of complete bliss, and Buffy, for once didn't even think of running.

She reached up slowly and ran the pads of her fingers over his eyebrow, around the corner of his eye and down to his cheek. Buffy flushed slightly when Xander readily turned into her subconscious caress of his face  with an aborted groan…one she was looking so forward to getting used to, and her whisper was laced with the unexpected joy of what she had salvaged the night before in the rain…what was now illuminated and glowing right before her eyes, "Found it…"

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The End


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